Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medicine packet inspection apparatus and method and, more particularly, to a medicine packet inspection apparatus which sequentially provides lights of different colors and photographs a medicine packet plural times corresponding to the lights of different colors so as to raise accuracy in packet inspection and a medicine packet inspection method using the same.
Description of the Related Art
In general, medicine is given to a patient according to a prescription from a doctor in a hospital or a pharmacy.
Patients with a chronic disease periodically take the same medicine set over a long period of time. For example, a hypertensive patient or a diabetic patient should take the same medicine set every day for one month to three months or more. In this case, the patient is prescribed a large amount of medicines at once.
A unit of prescribed medicines, which should be taken at a time, is accommodated in a medicine packet, one side of which is opened. Thereafter, by sealing the opened side of the medicine packet, preparation of the medicine packet, in which medicines are packed, is completed.
Here, a plurality of medicine packets is continuously connected to form a medicine packet bundle. More specifically, a dose of medicine is automatically packed in a medicine packet and medicine packets are continuously connected, thus forming a medicine packet bundle.
In order to secure accuracy in medicines taken by a patient, operation to inspect whether or not some of prescribed medicines are omitted from a medicine packet, whether or not a medicine packet includes medicines which are not prescribed, whether or not a medicine packet includes a number of medicines exceeding the prescribed number of medicines, etc., is carried out.
Among methods of inspecting medicine packets, there is a method of photographing a medicine packet, detecting medicines from an acquired image, and judging whether or not the medicine packet is defective by comparing the detected medicines to medicine prescription information. Particularly, such a method may reduce a time taken to inspect medicine packets, if a large amount of medicines is prescribed at once, thus being widely used.
However, medicines have various colors. Therefore, if there is a medicine having a similar color to the color of the background of an acquired image, the medicine may not be precisely distinguished from the acquired image and thus judgment as to whether or not a medicine packet containing the medicines is defective may fail.
Further, if text is printed on a medicine packet and the text and medicines overlap, the medicines may not be precisely distinguished due to presence of the text and thus judgment as to whether or not a medicine packet containing the medicines is defective may fail.